Editors Note: This is a translated and edited version of an article from the Chinese newspaper Cankao Xiaoxi. The article reports on China recently being given the title of “most netizens in the world”. A "netizen" is someone who is a registered user on a social media site. For those of us who have grown used to an “Anglicized” version of the world-wide web, this news should give us reason to worry. As China’s Internet presence continues to spread westward, as is the case with the Weibo micro-blogging service developing an English client, the integration of English-speaking and Chinese-speaking users online is inevitable. Better go brush up on your Chinese right now! 

The number of Chinese Netizens has increased nearly 20-fold since 2000

Research Associate Liu Ruisheng, of the Institute of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently noted that, over the last ten years, the number of Chinese netizens has increased nearly 20-fold. In 2000, the number of Internet users in China was about 22.5 million; by the end of 2010, this figure had grown to 457 million. In this time period, more than one-third of the entire population of China has "logged on". As of March 2011, this number has already increased to 477 million.

Liu Ruisheng believes that Mandarin is now the second most commonly used language online (after English), and that the popularity of in speaking Mandarin online is only getting stronger. According to statistics, from 2000 to 2010, there was a 1,277% growth rate of Mandarin-speaking users online; now, Mandarin-speaking users are close to catching up with the 537 million English-speaking users.

2010 was a landmark year for “new media” in China. During the year, the Internet penetration rate (IPR) in China (the percentage of population online) reached 34.3%. This is 1.5 times the IPR of other developing countries, and the gap with developed countries is shrinking every year (the IPR in the US is about 76%, and northern European countries are in the 80 and 90 percentile range). Also of note, in 2010, China's cell phone user base passed 800 million, and as of late March 2011, had already reached 890 million. By comparison, this is nearly three times the number of cell phone users in the US (303 million).

The comments of the netizens（网络舆论）have already spread to the mainstream of Chinese society as well, with topics like corrupt officials and common social issues dominating discussion. Zhong Ying Vice President of the Journalism and Communication School at Huazhong Science and Technology University noted that recent research results about the most talked social issues (210 items) showed that in 67% of the cases the comments Chinese netizens posted have had direct and positive effects on the way that the government tries to resolve various social issues.

Over half of minors under the age of ten have already "logged on"

 The "Chinese minors Internet Usage in 2010" report noted that, there is a clear trend illustrating that Chinese minors are getting online at younger ages. In 2010, the IPR for Chinese minors was 77.2%; Chinese minors connecting to the Internet using their cell phones was 39.5%.

According to survey results, more than half of minors under the age of ten have already started using the Internet. Of these “netizines-in-training”, 48.8% of them were between the ages of 5-10 when they first went online and 7% of them had used the Internet before the age of five. 70 percent of the surveyed minors said that they regularly used the Internet at least once a week, but spent less than two hours online each time. They also stated that their primary reason for going online was for "entertainment".

Cell phones are the device that minors use for communication and Internet access. As of 2010, 46.6% of minors in China owned a cell phone, and of those, 40% used it to get online. The most popular uses when online were listed as “talking with friends”, “listen to music”, and “logging on to social media sites”.

The types of websites that the minors frequented, the games that they played and the other online content that they used apparently wasn’t really that notably different, but, the survey noted that it is unable to collect data on exclusive sites (where you have to sign in), so not much is known about their usage there. Experts believe that it is crucial to follow new technologies trends and their usage by minors (as young people often adopt new technological trends earlier than adults). Simply put, the ways that minors use the Internet today will provide insight into China's future.
 

Source: Cankao Xiaoxi 

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Keywords: number of internet users in China number of Chinese Netizens Chinese minors internet usage